The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek Part 7

"Well, all serene so far," observed Bud, as night settled down on them in their new environment.

"Yes, I don't reckon we'll be disturbed," observed Billee, who was there with them.

"It'll give me a chance to pick up, an' get back in th' saddle again,"

observed Yellin' Kid in his usual loud voice. He had been allowed to form part of the "fort" guard, as it was thought the duties there would not be strenuous for a while, at least, and he could make a better recovery than at Diamond X.

"Well, it's a good place for a fight, if one comes," said Nort, as he looked about the place. It readily lent itself well to fortification, and advantage had been taken of this by Mr. Merkel. The rough shack was an outpost fort in the land that was destined to be battled for by the sheep men on one side and the cattle men on the other.

Quiet evening was settling down, "grub" had been served and the ponies were rubbing noses in the improvised corral when Yellin' Kid, who was venturing to walk around a little to "exercise his game leg," as he expressed it, came to a halt and gazed earnestly across Spur Creek in the direction of Mexico distant several miles.

"What is it, Kid?" asked Billee, who was smoking his pipe.

"Somebody's comin'," was the answer, "an' he's sweatin' leather," which meant that he was riding fast.

The boy ranchers looked in the direction indicated. A lone horseman was approaching from the side of the creek where the enemy might be expected first to appear.

CHAPTER VI

THE ALARM

Gathered in front of their "fort," as it laughingly had been christened, the boy ranchers and their cow puncher comrades watched the approach of the lone horseman. He had come up through the valley--the pa.s.s that, like the neck of a bag tied about the middle with a string, connected two great lands--Mexico and the United States. But one land represented law and order to a degree, while the other was woefully lacking in these essentials to progress.

For a time the stranger rode on at the fast pace Yellin' Kid had at first observed, and the atmosphere was so clear that his progress was easily noticed without gla.s.ses, though Bud brought out a pair after a moment or two.

Then, suddenly, the approaching horseman seemed to become aware, for the first time, of the new structure at Spur Creek--the "fort" of Diamond X.

For he began to slacken his pace and when a quarter of a mile from the place where Mr. Merkel had determined to make a stand, the horseman pulled up his steed. Then he sat in the saddle and gazed long and earnestly at the shack and those who stood grouped in front of it.

"Look out!" suddenly cried Bud, who was watching the horseman through the gla.s.ses. "He's going to draw!"

This meant gun play, and the cowboys realized this, for they lost no time in "ducking" behind shelter. Bud, too, was taking no chances, but as he continued to look, from a vantage point, he said:

"I made a mistake. He's only using gla.s.ses, same as I am. He didn't pull a gun."

"Who is he?" asked Nort.

"Anybody we know?" d.i.c.k inquired.

"Never saw him before, to my knowledge," remarked Bud. "He's a Mexican or a Greaser, I take it." These terms were almost synonymous, except that a Mexican was a little higher cla.s.s than a Greaser half-breed, as the term, was sometimes applied.

"Let me take a look," suggested Yellin' Kid. "I know most of the cla.s.s on the other side of the Rio Grande."

Long and earnestly the cowboy gazed through the gla.s.ses at the lone figure on the other side of Spur Creek--a gaze that was returned with interest, so to speak.

"He's Mex all right," said Yellin' Kid, handing the gla.s.ses to Billee, "but what his game is I don't know."

"Looks like he just came to size us up," observed Billee, after an observation, at the conclusion of which the stranger turned his horse and rode slowly off in the direction whence he had come.

"That's right," a.s.sented Bud.

"Do you think he's a sheep herder?" asked Nort.

"Might be. Looks mean enough," said Yellin' Kid. The cattle men could say nothing too strong against this despised cla.s.s of breeders and their innocent charges. Sheep herders were the sc.u.m of the earth to the ranchmen, and to say that a man has "gone in for sheep" was to utter the last word against him, though he might be a decent member of society for all that, and with as kind and human instincts as his more affluent neighbor raising cattle or horses.

"Well, he knows we're here and on the job, at any rate," commented Bud as the horseman slowly disappeared from sight in the distance.

"Yes, and he'll very likely tell his band and we'll have them buzzing about our ears before we know it," remarked Billee.

"Then we'll fight!" cried Bud.

"That's right!" chimed in Nort and d.i.c.k.

"I wish my leg was in better shape," complained Yellin' Kid. "But I can make a s.h.i.+ft to ride if I have to."

However, the next two days pa.s.sed with no signs of any activities on the part of the enemy. No sheep were sighted being driven up through the pa.s.s to the lands that were now, by government proclamation, open to whoever wanted to claim them, barring only those already having large holdings of grazing range.

"But this is only the calm before the storm," declared Bud, when he and his chums talked it over. "We'll have a fight yet."

And it was very likely that this would happen. While waiting, though, every opportunity was taken to better fortify that part of Spur Creek where Mr. Merkel's land began.

The shack was made more comfortable, a telephone line was strung to it from the main ranch at Diamond X, and it was well stocked with provisions.

"And we'd better run in a pipe line so we can pump water directly from the creek into the shack," said Billee when certain improvements were being talked over.

"Why that?" asked Nort.

"Well, it's terrible thing in this hot weather to be cut off from your water supply," said the old frontiersman. "And it might happen that the Greasers and sheep men would get between our fort and the stream.

Then we couldn't get out for water without losing our scalps, so to speak. But if we have a pump in here, and the pipe line concealed so the scoundrels can't locate it, we can be a.s.sured of a never-ending supply of water."

"It's good advice," decided Mr. Merkel when it was told to him, and, accordingly the pump was installed. During this time no more was seen of the solitary horseman, or, indeed, of any visitors or spies on the Mexican side of Spur Creek. I say the Mexican side, though, as a matter of fact the Mexican border was some miles away, and I merely mention that country to identify the two sections, one on one side and one on the other of the stream, which was wholly within the United States.

Meanwhile Sheriff Hank Fowler had endeavored to trace the thieves who had robbed Mr. Merkel's safe, but there had been no results. Professor Wright and his men were busily engaged in further search for fossil bones, and they were considered out of suspicion.

Mr. Merkel had engaged the services of a lawyer to take up with the authorities in Was.h.i.+ngton the matter of his stolen deeds in an effort to hold to his land. There were rumors that a number of the new government claims had been taken up on the land that was once the property of the Indians, and among them some of the claim holders were sheep herders, it was said.

"Well, they'd better keep away from Spur Creek--that's all I got to say!" cried Yellin' Kid in his usual loud tones.

So far, however, there had been no advent of the hated "woollies" as they were sometimes called. But the boy ranchers and their friends did not relax their vigilance. The sheep and their human owners might drift in across the creek at any hour, day or night, so a constant guard was maintained.

It was one rainy, disagreeable night that the alarm came. It was the turn of Bud and Nort to stand watch, and they were keeping wary eyes turned toward the creek boundary through the mist of rain.

"This is no fun," mused Nort as he wrapped his poncho closer about him.

"I've seen more jolly times," agreed Bud with a laugh. "But it can't last forever. Wonder what time it is, anyhow?"